Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

In The Drug Industry’s Civil War, Finger-Pointing Over Prices Is The Name Of The Game

News outlets report on stories related to pharmaceutical pricing.

The New York Times:
Drug Lobbyists’ Battle Cry Over Prices: Blame The Others
Hundreds of independent pharmacists swarmed the House and Senate office buildings one recent afternoon, climbing the marble staircases as they rushed from one appointment to the next, pitching lawmakers on their plan to rein in the soaring drug prices that have enraged American consumers. As they crowded into lawmakers’ offices, describing themselves as the industry’s “white hats,” they pointed a finger at pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts and CVS Health, which handle the drug coverage of millions of Americans. (Lipton and Thomas, 5/29)

The New York Times:
A Look At Major Drug-Pricing Proposals
Several bills that seek to tackle the high cost of prescription drugs are moving through Congress, and the Trump administration has also signaled that it may take action. Here’s a list of the major drug-pricing proposals under consideration. (Thomas, 5/29)

Bloomberg:
When The Patient Is A Gold Mine: The Trouble With Rare-Disease Drugs
The average U.S. patient on an orphan drug last year relied on a $136,000 therapy, a figure that’s climbed 38 percent since 2010...Having to rely for profits on a small number of customers who are each potentially worth millions of dollars causes side effects of its own. For years, the sales culture at Alexion was so pressure-packed that aggressive phone calls to doctors were among its milder transgressions. Ethical lines were routinely crossed, troubling many of its workers, according to interviews with more than 20 current and former employees and more than 2,000 pages of internal documents. (Elgin, Bloomfield and Chen, 5/24)

The Wall Street Journal:
High-Priced Drugs Raise Costs For Seniors In Medicare Part D
Carole Siesser, a retiree in Delray Beach, Fla., started taking a bone-growth drug made by Eli Lilly & Co. after she fell and fractured her spine. After two years, the medicine helped to heal her back. It also cost her $5,600 of her own money to help cover the roughly $26,000 annual price, even though she has Medicare. “They really take advantage of the seniors,” Ms. Siesser, 79, said of pharmaceutical companies. “There’s no competition, so they can charge what they want.” (Walker, 5/29)

Kaiser Health News:
Drug Rebates Reward Industry Players — And Often Hurt Patients
Medicare and its beneficiaries aren’t the winners in the behind-the-scenes rebate game played by drugmakers, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, according to a paper published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine. The paper, which dives into the complex and opaque world of Medicare drug price negotiations, finds that rebates may actually drive up the amount Medicare and its beneficiaries pay for drugs — especially for increasingly common high-priced drugs — and it offers some systemic solutions. (Tribble, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal:
Big Pension Funds Oppose Election Of Six Mylan Directors
A group of institutional investors unhappy over high executive pay at Mylan NV are taking aim at six board members at the EpiPen maker. Four major pension funds launched a campaign late Tuesday urging fellow Mylan shareholders to oppose the re-election of Chairman Robert J. Coury and five other directors at the company’s June 22 annual meeting. Mr. Coury, Mylan’s former chief executive, received nearly $100 million in 2016, when the company ignited a public furor over hefty price increases on its lifesaving allergy medicine. (Lublin, 5/30)

Stat:
Battle Over A Pricey Drug Now Engulfs The University Of California
Dozens of advocacy groups are urging one of the largest American universities not to pursue a patent for a pricey cancer drug in India, opening another front in an ongoing battle over access to the medicine. At issue is the Xtandi prostate cancer treatment, which was originally invented at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has become a flashpoint in a wider debate in the United States over the extent to which Americans should pay high prices for medicines that were developed, at least in part, with taxpayer dollars. (Silverman, 5/25)

Sacramento Bee:
Soaring Drug Prices Prompt CA Bills To Control Costs
From presidential campaign promises to congressional hearings on the price of EpiPens, 2016 was the year that public anger over the rising cost of prescription drugs boiled into a national outrage. California lawmakers responded this session with a half-dozen measures targeting players across the complex supply chain that brings medications to patients and determines what they pay. To tackle what those legislators say is a problem of drug affordability, however, they’ll first have to agree on who is to blame. (Koseff, 5/29)

Stat:
Maryland Adopts A Law That Punishes Price Gouging On Generics
Abill that would allow the Maryland attorney general to take legal action against generic drug makers for price gouging became law on Friday by default, after Governor Lawrence Hogan Jr. declined to sign the legislation over constitutional concerns. The outcome was praised by consumer activists, who decried a “Wild West” pricing atmosphere, but lambasted by the generic industry trade association, which maintained the law would have a “chilling” effect on competition and “no material impact” on lowering drug costs in the state. (Silverman, 5/26)

NPR:
State Wants Drugmaker To Set An Affordable Price For Zika Vaccine
The U.S. Army is planning to grant an exclusive license to the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, Inc. to manufacture and sell a Zika vaccine the Army developed last year. And that has Rebekah Gee, Louisiana's secretary of health, worried about paying for it. "God forbid we have a Zika outbreak. We're in the middle of a fiscal crisis, we're already cutting services to people and we're already potentially cutting our funding to fight the Zika virus," Gee says. (Kodjak, 5/30)

This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.